As coronavirus shuts salons, black women wonder: What are we going to do?

Posted Mar 25, 2020

Kenya Cephas, owner of Salon Femi in Bloomfield, trims a customer's hair. Thirty-two clients showed up last week after Gov. Phil Murphy said hair salons had to close because of the coronavirus. Cephas gave her customers strategies on what they can do while she's closed.(Kenya Cephas)

Kenya Cephas has owned her hair salon for 16 years, and last Thursday probably was her busiest day. Anxious black women called her Bloomfield shop, Salon Femi, for appointments and advice, and before the day was over, 32 women packed her place as news spread that hair salons, considered non-essential businesses, would be closed because of the coronavirus.

To the governor, salons are non-essential. To Cephas’ customers? They’re fundamental to the complicated hair care of black women, who now feel like they have nowhere to go. The expression of identity through hairstyles has been a part of black culture for decades. There have been books written on the cultural significance of women’s hair in the black community.

Last week, Cephas’ customers were worried.

“They wanted to know: ‘What are we going to do without the salon?’" she said.

Depending on the texture of their hair and their hairstyle, some women require a relaxer every six to eight weeks, Cephas said. Others visit every two weeks for a wash and wrap, a natural hair care treatment, a trim and/or coloring. These needs are fed by culture and hair.

“Our hair takes a tremendous amount of care,’’ Cephas said. “It takes more time and needs more nurturing."

But there’s also the risk: It’s difficult to practice social distancing in a crowded salon while having your hair cut or colored, your nails painted or your eyebrows waxed.

And there’s another complication: Wigs, weaves, and hair extensions come from factories primarily based in China, where the coronavirus has halted the economy and disrupted supply chains.

Sabrina McGirt, of Totowa, is one of Cephas’ most loyal customers. Two weeks ago, she came for a relaxer and coloring. And she was back again on Thursday. An account manager in financial services, she works from home, but she appears frequently on video conferencing, and for her, hair styling is important. The shop has been instrumental in calming anxieties about her appearance, she said, but now she wasn’t sure when it would be open again.

“There’s angst, but when you step into Salon Femi, there is a calmness," she said. “You feel like you’re sitting there with your family.”

Cephas, as she often does, gave her customers strategies on how they can care for their hair and scalp during this pandemic.

“We don’t know how long this is going to last," she said.

Leslie Faison of Hackensack, however, was stressing, because her usual salon -- which is in Brooklyn -- was shuttered before New Jersey closed its salons.

Faison said she is past due for a relaxer and color treatment, describing her hair as a “wreck.” Co-workers, however, wouldn’t know. That’s because Faison, who works in asset management, said she turns the camera off on video conferencing calls. They can hear her, but there’s no visual.

“I’m trying not to stress, because I’m one of those people when stress happens, my hair falls out and that’s the last thing I want," Faison said.

A Willingboro resident, who asked to remain nameless, said she drove to Maryland -- “I had a small window of time” -- for her hair treatments before the state cracked down on non-essential businesses.

With just a three-hour window, Dashay Carter pulled it off. At 5 p.m., Newark announced that non-essential businesses would close by 8 p.m. In that span, she found a nail and hair shop and was done.

Carter, who is the director of human resources for the Newark Housing Authority and an Army reserve specialist, was worried about nail and hair businesses, and their workers, who are now left without an income.

Cephas said salon owners must wait it out. Safety is first right now. As the virus spreads and New Jersey expects the numbers of the infected to increase, Cephas predicts black women will get creative and endure -- until the shops are re-opened. They may have to pull the hair back, smooth it out with a deep conditioner and tame the edge, but ...